SHIELD: Black Ops
by Marvel-FanFiction-Universe
Summary: #2 of my MFFU. Captain America has been reawakened in the modern day, and has been put to work by Nick Fury as the living embodiment of the USA once more, fighting for Justice. However, a dark, but intelligent group of terrorists known as Advanced Idea Mechanics threaten the freedom of the world. Can Cap stop them? And how can Frank Castle help him?
1. Chapter 1

Grand Central Station was busy with people, as was the entire city. A red headed woman crossed through the crowds, a black coat wrapped around her. To onlookers this gorgeous woman could have been anything, modest shoes, and black trousers. Under the coat was anyone's guess but she had sunglasses on, hiding her no doubt deep big eyes. She paused as a newspaper kiosk and glanced over the titles. She picked up the latest edition of Gay Times, and flicked through the pages idly.  
"'Ey!" A voice said, breaking her concentration, "This ain't no lie'berry, lady, you gonna buy that or not?" The Italian-American kiosk owner asked her rudely.  
"No, thank you," the red headed woman replied, closing the magazine and placed it back down. She turned and walked towards a cafe nearby, set slightly up from the main floor, meaning she had a good view of the magazine. "The disk has been planted." She said into the Bluetooth piece on her ear

"_Very nice, Tasha,_"  
"Thank you." She replied.  
"_So tell me again, Nick, what's the point in this plan?_" Clint Barton's voice said.  
"_A.I.M. are sniffing close to us, our Intel says that they're planning something on a huge scale. We're moving some secure files to a base in the Nevada desert._"  
"What are the codes?"  
"_Lockdown and emergency launch codes._" Fury replied.  
"_And why are we moving them this way?_" Clint asked.  
"_We can't risk A.I.M. getting hold of them. If we used a secure convoy and a helicopter, A.I.M. would just blow it to smithereens._" Fury stated.

Natasha sat up, "Heads up guys, we have trouble…" she said.  
"_What's going on?…Romanoff?_" Fury barked into her ear.  
"Someone's buying the magazine. The magazine with the disk in." she said, already moving through the crowd towards the kiosk.

"Damn, Nick, it's Basil Sandhurst." Clint replied.  
Natasha Romanoff looked up towards his spot, watching over the main room of Grand Central, his sunglasses able to pick out faces. She followed his gaze and followed the man onto platform one with her eyes. "We're going to lose him," she said and moved through the crowd again, pushing people out of the way rudely.  
"I won't be able to see him now!" Clint said.  
"_Stop whining!_" General Fury's voice barked. "_Widow, follow him and get that disk back, if we can get him, we'll have prevented a war._" He said.  
Clint moved quickly down the stairs and into the crowd after Natasha.  
Sandhurst glanced over his shoulder and gritted his teeth as he wrenched the disk from the Vogue magazine and threw the magazine into the crowd.

Sandhurst grabbed a child and held her up with an arm around her neck, in his other hand he held a needle, pointed towards the girl's neck. The girl screamed and kicked her legs uselessly against his stomach.  
"Shut up!" Basil snapped at her and she whimpered.  
Natasha broke through the crowd of people and grabbed her handgun. "This is a SHIELD controlled issue, people," she said to the crowd around her.  
"_I can't get through this crowd, Natasha!_" Clint said into her ear.  
Natasha aimed her gun at Sandhurst.  
"Miss Romanoff, if you shoot me, I will sink this needle into this little girl's neck, and you would not have made a difference." Sandhurst laughed. He began to back away, still holding the girl, towards the end of the platform.  
Romanoff followed him slowly, aiming her gun steady.  
Sandhurst smiled darkly, "Miss Romanoff, catch!" He said, and carelessly tossed the girl onto the tracks, just as the loud toot of a horn issued from the other end of the platform.

Natasha reacted on instinct and dived towards the girl, before a tall, blonde, well-built man in a dark blue suit jumped over her and down onto the track as well, lifting the girl up and heaving her easily onto the platform beside Natasha.  
Romanoff quickly pulled the girl back from danger and checked her for injuries.  
The blonde man then span and jumped, holding onto the front of the train as it hit him. He grunted but held tight as the train screeched to a halt. The man peered into the drivers cabin with piercing blue eyes as the driver stared in shock at the man before him as he fell onto the dirt, and quickly climbed up onto the platform and rolled slowly away from danger. He lay there, panting, before slowly standing, looking down at where his shirt had snagged on the rough metal, revealing his costume beneath.  
"_What's going on!_" Fury barked through their ear pieces.

Natasha looked up, seeing Clint break his way through the crowd of onlookers, before her gaze shifted to Captain America.  
"Sandhurst got away." He said grimly.

The sun set slowly over the New Mexico Highway as the black Camaro growled along towards the tollbooth into the America.  
Frank Castle stopped the car in the shortest line; he gripped the steering wheel in one hand and his fake passport in the other. When the line moved forward Castle followed, his nerves getting the better of him as his Camaro growled to a halt in the inspection bay next to the office. He rolled the window down and handed his papers over to a very official woman who asked for them in English.  
The passport had the name of one of Castle's latest victims, and the picture of Frank with his newly-grown beard, hoping he wouldn't be recognised from countless Wanted posters and news reports and urban legends.

The woman went to the office booth and a burly gentleman came back. "Excuse me, sir? Would you mind turning off the engine, and stepping from the vehicle?"  
Frank hesitated, "What's this for?" He asked as he complied, keeping his hands visible as the man opened the car door.  
As Frank stood, he could see into the office; a computer screen showed a frozen image of his face from the CCTV camera, blinking away above their heads, and another screen beside it showing his face in a mug shot, the name "Frank Castle" clearly written across the screen.  
_Shit!_  
He reacted fast, but so did the burly man, bringing his hand down onto Frank's wrist as he tried to pull a hidden knife from the car door, but Frank was quicker still, smashing his forehead into the guy's nose, knocking him away. Frank took off with men trailing behind him to apprehend him. He hopped the barrier, one, two, three feet inside American soil, when he realised his mistake. He could now be arrested. He turned, whipping twin Colt 1911s from holsters under his jacket, but before he could even spot a target, he felt a dart pierce his neck, and he hit the ground.

A woman with dark hair, in a black one-piece suit, stood over him, aiming a big hand-gun down on him. "Freeze, asshole," she spat.  
Frank's eyes widened, clearing his vision long enough to see a name badge, "Hill" and a SHIELD patch on her shoulder.  
_Damn..._


	2. Chapter 2

The conference room was cold, the air conditioning broken during the summer, and even Steven Rogers was shivering.  
Nick Fury stood at the head of the room, hands on his hips as he explained the situation, his only eye looked pissed.  
"We don't know how but A.I.M. were able to pick up our secure transmissions," he informed half of the Avengers.  
Captain America sat back in his chair, arms folded. "So what's the plan now?"  
"We're waiting. It's all we can do. We wait for A.I.M. to make a ransom demand." Fury replied.  
"But why can't we just reprogram the codes?" Clint asked, "surely you have the power to do that?"  
"The codes aren't just for neuclear warheads," Fury replied with a sigh. "They're for the entire United States warhead range." He said, and Steve sat forward. "More importantly, they're for a new bio-technological weapon being developed in the Nevada Desert."

Silence took a hold of the conference room again, but everyone was startled when the intercomm bleeped.  
"General Fury, Agent Hill, we have the Punisher in custody."  
"Very good, Hill, I'll be down in a minute." Fury said and made eye contact with each Avenger in turn. "I want you to go to the Nevada facility." He said. "I'll handle the prep myself."  
Steve nodded and stood, as did Clint, but Natasha stayed seated.  
"Sir." She said, "I don't like this." She said.  
Fury sighed. "Me neither. But we have a job to do now." He said, laying his hands on the table.  
Natasha stood with Steve and Clint and all three exited the room.  
Fury stayed where he was for a few minutes, before straightening and going down to the detention centre of the Triskelion.

In a rather spacious, but somewhat unfurnished, save for the cot, cell, Frank Castle sat with his back against the wall.  
"Howdy, Frank," Nick said from the free-side of the holo-solid wall.  
Slowly, Frank looked up. "General." He nodded.  
"Look at you, Frank..." Fury began, "You used to be so...Well I guess you still are. You're a killer, Frank, born, raised and trained in the USA, a package of the bile and the evil that walks our streets, yet I guess you just turn that bile back on itself."  
Frank slowly sank back against the wall, looking at his lap. He clenched his jaw.  
"The Punisher." Fury exclaimed. "Trained by Uncle Sam to kill the bad guys, his family killed after you, sir, took down their business on one of my black op missions."  
At this point Frank lifted his head and gave Fury a grim stare.  
"You yourself...left for dead. One of my best men. You lost it, man, but reading about it was glorious! You wiped out that entire family, in some pretty interesting ways, I might add."

Frank slowly stood and walked towards the wall. It was only milimetres thick, but it would send Frank back into the wall and give him a shock strong enough to knock him out for a while. He stood half a foot away from it, but could feel the hairs on his arms leaning towards it from the static.  
He stared at Fury. "So what now?"  
"Well, since Frank Castle is legally dead...having shot himself in the head with a shotgun after he killed his families murderers...You're here under the murders of a dead man."  
Frank snorted, and spat on the 'wall', where it crackled and fizzed in the silence between the two men.  
"I think you can help your country, Frank." Fury said. "You've been doing great favours for us in Mexico. No matter which way you look at it, you owe us a favour or two."

Frank glowered at Fury through the green barrier and grunted his approval. "Guess you're right." He said.  
Fury smiled and look directly at Frank. "Try to escape, and Mister Barton here will stick an arrow three vertibre up from the base of your spine."  
"Try one, just to give me a challenge." Clint said from behind Fury.  
"See you on the range, Cupid." Frank said as the barrier was dropped and cuffs were fitted to Frank's ankles and wrists, limiting his movement. He stepped forward and stood between the two SHIELD agents.  
Clint clenched his jaw but turned and led the two along the cell block.

Frank glanced left and right as he shuffled along past the cells. In the cell one-along-and-across from his, a tall, lean black man stared at him. The screen next to the cell read "Rhodes, Luietenant Colonel James."  
Frank waited until they'd moved on before asking. "Is that 'War Machine' James Rhodes?"  
"The one and only." Fury replied.  
Frank frowned and glanced over his shoulder.  
"He's here because he flipped out on us, the War Machine power went to his head, and when Anthony Stark built what the press has deemed 'the Invincible Iron Man' Rhodes got a little jealous, wanted the limelight for himself. He went rogue and tried to kill Mister Stark." Fury told him. Frank frowned again but his attention was captured by the room that Clint had just opened.

On the table was a wide array of high-tech weapons, and a dark blue nody suit with deep-blood-red markings and white trim. On the chest was a skull.  
"What's this, Fury? I'm not Steven Rogers." Frank said.  
"Maybe not, but we'll always need a 'second best'" Clint muttered.  
Fury sent him a glare. "Easy, soldier." He cautioned, and turned to Frank, "This is all-over body armour, and man it's high-tech. We've used all of Stark's little gadgets on this, you'll be on par with Captain America, but with none of the mercy." He said.  
Frank looked down at the suit and mulled it over in silence.

"What's the mission, sir?" He asked, and Fury grinned.


End file.
